another view

another view....also extended bed in lower left...about 2 feet to the left and another 2 ft down....

cobbled the path up the hill....was just stone steps with mulch path in between....narrowed path by 6-12 inches to give me a bit more planting space.

Replanted hostas & laid stone.....hostas are an opposite spiral to the stones, making a figure 8 or double helix. in the center of each circle are large hostas, sum & substance & t-rex.

made rock garden in back where the fallen hickory pulled out the stone wall under the concrete slab. extended the 2 beds in center out a foot or so, narrowing the pathway.

I can tell by that land that you are in the Ozarks!

I love the rock/stone steps. Did you know those rocky areas would make a good bed for some herbs?

LOLl my house is about 40ft wide,and the hill drops away a whole storey in that width, so about 9 ft in 40 or so....a bit greater than a 1 in 5 drop.

Unforunately, only a fairly small area gets wh atI would call full sun, so I am always frustrated by choosing plants for those other tough spots.

Tim

You could plant lots of bulbs and spring ephemerals. It depends on the bulbs and the kinds of trees you have. Do your daffodils get enough sun in spring to keep going? I like the small ones tete et tete or something like that. Virginia bluebells bloom in spring and are under an oak tree at my house. Shade is actually an easier garden and there are nice shade plants. In sun you have to fight Bermuda. If you have sun where it is hard to garden you can use big pots but they have to be watered. The whiskey half barrels and big pots don't have to be watered every day. I have planted lettuce and peppers in pots near the house. I have walnut trees and an elm in my yard - lots of tree roots so the pots help.

Actually, i do have a lot of ephemerals & bulbs......there's a little yellow
Corydalis scattered everywhere, dentaria, and the cutest clump of anemonella at the corner of t the steps. At the top of the path is stylophorum and sanguinaria.....daffodils here and there....probably more, just cant remember right now....solomon's seal, just move some in this fall....amongst the hostas and ferns.

Put that way, just what am I whining about? Lol but i have been wanting t to try shredded parasols and chinese mayapple.

Tim

I also have loads heucheras, as long as you like h. villosa hybrids or h. Americana.

The villosa hybrids do great for me, strong growth and 'brownies' reseeds pretty regularly....heuchera are so easy to splt & propagate, have many many plants.

Other hybrids don't seem to do well for me, for some reason.....but that could just be their particular circumstances. (Location, care, etc)

H. Americana is actually almost a lawn weed around here, and i have both my local natives and 'Dale's Strain.'

Lol.....it seems like my yard is 75% hosta, 15% heuchera, 5% ferns, and 5% miscellaneous......can you tell I am ready for something new?

Wow! That's fantastic! Hope you post pictures again when your plants come up in the spring/summer.
White flowered daffodils would be pretty.
My variegated liriope seems to be pretty tough and looks good (I think) where a few are planted in a row around a curve.
Have you tried bleeding hearts?
Lamium 'White Nancy' looks good as a contrast with hostas. I had a big healthy patch of that for a few years, then it vanished. I need to try it again. It seemed like a pretty easy plant until it died. lol

I have been wanting Corydalis for ages ever since an article in Horticulture. The garden writer lived in the NE.
She described it as popping up everywhere in spring and being a welcome sight. Do you have columbines? I used to have them and really like the blue and purple ones not so much the bonnet shaped flowers. I only have a few now. They reseed and pop up in between rocks and in paths. Then they get ratty in summer and I pull them up, but they make lots of seeds.

Very nice. I like the herbs idea if you can find some way to get more sun in your beds. Maybe a tomato plant too in the summer.

I'm glad someone else is realizing how usefull Mo. rocks are. Our place in Southern Mo. has ton after ton of either crystaline [all colors] rocks or fossils and we spend as much time haulling them in out of the woods for fences and borders as we do working in the gardens. Strongeagle

I have lots of rock here in NE Oklahoma, too, and we have done several things with the rock.

They sell pallets of rock at Atwood's for $100 a pallet. I've probably got thousands of dollars worth unearthed here already and there are always more every time I plant a new tree or bush. When given lemons, make lemonade.....